


I Want Your Love (I Need Your Touch)

by coshie



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff and Smut, In Public, M/M, Teasing, and also some smut, and tempting, and whipped cream, except this time it's aziraphale tempting crowley all day, gratuitous use of footnotes, melted ice cream, soft boi hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-09 14:59:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19478293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coshie/pseuds/coshie
Summary: "What do you think, my dear?""Mmn?  Yeah, really--- really great painting, great colors," he mumbled.Aziraphale squeezed slightly.  "You weren't listening."Crowley twitched as though something inside him had snapped.  It had.  "I wonder why I might not be wholly interesssted inbrushstrokesssright now," he hissed without any real heat.Crowley takes Aziraphale on a tour of art exhibits one Friday.  Aziraphale spends the day doing some tempting.  Crowley is anxious to get home.  Unexpected softness ensues.





	I Want Your Love (I Need Your Touch)

**Author's Note:**

> For my friend, who offered me the prompt of "Aziraphale spending all day tempting Crowley but making him wait until they get home", which immediately prompted me to stay up until 4am writing. Hope you enjoy the fluffy smut that happened as a result, boo boo 🙃
> 
> Inspiration also comes from [this wonderful fic, "that pulse of my nights and days" by Ark](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19133677), because I just cannot get over these two reciting to each other. (Ark does it better than I do, so go read it~)

Over the centuries, Crowley had been slowly refining his ability to tempt Aziraphale. Certain temptations, like food, required no more effort than a casual gesticulation. Others had taken decades to perfect; most notably, using himself as temptation had been tricky, but now Crowley could tempt the angel away from almost anything[1] with the suggestion of proper debauchery from a lascivious tongue.

On the other hand, Aziraphale seemed to be an immediate expert at honing in on whatever it was Crowley would most be tempted with at a given moment.[2] Crowley would not fully appreciate this until Friday evening, after spending the day touring various art exhibits in London with the angel.

That morning, when he had met Crowley outside his shop, Aziraphale had thought that it might be fun to see just how much _tempting_ the demon could take.

Crowley swallowed hard, keeping his eyes fixed determinedly on the painting in front of him, “Angel.”

“Mm.” Aziraphale hummed in response, entirely noncommittal.

“Your hand.”

“Yes, my dear?”

Crowley blessed under his breath; Aziraphale chuckled. “If you keep this up---” the demon started to say.

But Aziraphale cut him off with the slightest pressure in his fingers. “You will do nothing,” he responded very quietly, leaning closer; his lips just brushed Crowley’s ear. “I told you: you will wait.” His fingers lingered just a second longer than was strictly necessary on Crowley’s lower back, _juuuust_ under the hem of his shirt and along the waistband of his pants, before Aziraphale withdrew his hand.

Crowley turned to say something very petulant in response, but Aziraphale merely smiled and clicked his tongue. “There are children around, dearest, let’s watch our tongues,” he chided before Crowley could say anything.

“Children, right, yeah,” Crowley mumbled as they moved to look at the next painting in the display. “Yeah, watch my tongue, but don’t mind the fact that you’ve been feeling me up all afternoon.”

“Come now,” Aziraphale said, sounding appropriately scandalized, “that is hardly true. A touch here and there, away from prying eyes---”

“You licked my neck on the bus,” Crowley countered bluntly.

Aziraphale’s ears turned a very slight pink as he studied the painting in front of them very carefully. “It was a kiss,” he murmured as some chattering schoolchildren passed behind them.

Crowley chuckled. “It was very wet for a kiss.” Aziraphale turned to look at him, lips parted to argue further, but Crowley was smirking down at him. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, angel, I’m not complaining, I _liked it_.” He leaned closer. “I would happily return the favor tenfold, too.”

Aziraphale put his hand over Crowley’s mouth and pushed him back; Crowley couldn’t help but notice the angel was smiling behind his feigned embarrassment. “I told you, my dear, you can _wait_.”

Crowley chuckled and pressed a kiss to Aziraphale’s palm. “But can you?”

Of course he could. This became all too obvious about an hour later as they sat on a bench outside the museum, eating ice cream cones. Crowley hissed in frustration as a stream of melted vanilla dripped down over his fingers. He switched the cone to his other hand and cast around for a napkin--- but Aziraphale caught his hand. “Let me help with that,” he said with a barely concealed smirk. Crowley opened his mouth to argue - _I just need a napkin, angel, it’s not that big of a deal, no miracles necessary, you keep saying I’m overusing them_ \- but his protests died in his throat when Aziraphale put his lips around all three vanilla-covered fingers and licked away the sugary mess.

“Nngh,” Crowley tried as his body gave an involuntary jerk.

Aziraphale’s tongue pressed between two of his fingers; Crowley felt an unearthly pulse of heat shoot through his body. A second later, the angel pulled back, sucking ever so slightly on Crowley’s fingertips so that there was a slight _pop_ when his lips separated from Crowley’s skin.

“Ngk,” Crowley tried again. “I-I---”

“There,” Aziraphale said quite calmly, as though Crowley wasn’t about to burst into flames, “all clean. Oh dear, you’ve dropped your ice cream.”

He had[3], but Crowley wasn’t all to concerned with the lost dessert at the moment. “Y-you said, earlier, you said we--- but we’re in _public_ , we’re--- _angel_ ,” he managed, sounding completely impressed, and not just a little aroused.

“I admit,” Aziraphale said, turning back to his own ice cream as though he was entirely unconcerned about what had just transpired, “that was a little indecent of me. But it seemed like such a waste. Before you dropped it.” He licked the length of his own ice cream while making deliberate eye contact.

“When--- when we get back,” Crowley mumbled, leaning closer, “oh, _angel_ , when we get back---”

“Mm,” Aziraphale hummed. He reached up once again to put a hand over Crowley’s mouth before it could reach his neck, and pushed him back again. “We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?”

“We could--- we could go back now,” Crowley tried, reaching up with both of his hands to lower Aziraphale’s. “Forget the other exhibits, we can be back at my place in---”

“Absolutely not,” Aziraphale said firmly. He took his hand from Crowley’s, but reached up to caress his face. He smiled. “You owe me this outing, and you won’t be getting out of it that easily, my dear.”

Four hours later, they stood admiring a pastel landscape at the last exhibit on the angel's itinerary. Aziraphale was discussing some of its "finer points", maybe even explaining the lovely tea time he had spent with the artist, something about the use of varying brushstrokes…. Crowley was all for art and its intricacies most days; most artists did end up Below, after all, and were usually a fascinating lot.

But he couldn't care less about that right now, because Aziraphale’s hand, in complete contrast with his conversational tone, had slipped into Crowley's back pocket[4] and was gripping his ass firmly.

Of course, this particular room of the exhibit was otherwise deserted, but there were voices and footsteps just a few yards away. Crowley stared at the painting in front of them without seeing it. He was determined not to respond to this one, determined to let the angel see that he _could_ wait, that he _had_ patience, that he _wasn't_ about to pin him against the wall and ravage him, tourists next door _be damned_.

"What do you think, my dear?"

"Mmn? Yeah, really--- really great painting, great colors," he mumbled.

Aziraphale squeezed slightly. "You weren't listening."

Crowley twitched as though something inside him had snapped. It had. "I wonder why I might not be wholly interesssted in _brushstrokesss_ right now," he hissed without any real heat.

With a chuckle, Aziraphale slid his hand out of Crowley's pocket and up his back, under his shirt. "Why indeed," he mused. His fingers were cool against Crowley's flushed skin. "I suppose there might be," he paused, then smirked, "another type of _stroke_ you would be more inclined to consider."

Crowley groaned, covering his face with one hand. "Even for you," he said, hoping he was hiding his smile[5], "that was terrible, angel."

They got glasses of wine and a slice of cake from the cafe next door to the last exhibit. Crowley didn't bother being subtle in watching Aziraphale eat the cake, so Aziraphale didn't bother being subtle in eating it in a rather salacious manner. And very slowly.

"Angel," Crowley murmured, nudging his foot under the table. "You're doing this on purpose."

"Doing what on purpose?" Aziraphale asked, all innocence and honey sweet.

"Finish the cake, angel."

"You could help me," he offered. Before Crowley could agree and snatch the fork from him, however, Aziraphale set the fork down and used his fingers to scoop up a dollop of cream. "Here," he purred, leaning forward and offering his fingers to the demon.

Had this been any other day, any other tea time, any other casual meal, Crowley would have relished the opportunity to do some tempting of his own. He would have let his human tongue resort back to its more familiar form, longer and forked, and licked Aziraphale's fingers clean, then moved his mouth to the angel's palm then wrist, trailing licentious kisses as far as Aziraphale would let him get away with.

Unfortunately, this afternoon, Crowley had been teased and fondled for hours, and was at the end of his admittedly short rope.[6] So he leaned forward, took Aziraphale's hand in his own, and put both fingers in his mouth, and sucked them clean with a moan.[7] Aziraphale smiled, his cheeks flushing, and murmured, " _Really_ , my dear."

"Need more help finishing?" Crowley asked in a low voice, holding Aziraphale's hand. "Or can we _go_?"

The bus ride back to the bookshop seemed to take longer than usual.[8] They sat next to each other, Aziraphale's hand on Crowley's thigh, a little higher than might be considered decent. Crowley's leg was bouncing fast enough to appear blurred, but his hands were quietly minding their own business in his lap, despite their overwhelming desire to be combing through white-gold curls and ripping off beige clothing.

When they finally returned to the bookshop, Aziraphale took a little longer than usual unlocking the front door. This time, however, was not because he was trying to. Instead, he was delayed by Crowley draped over his shoulders and pressing uninhibited kisses to his neck. It took a minor miracle to get the key slotted properly in the lock, and they both stumbled inside.

“Made me _wait_ ,” Crowley was mumbling, kicking the door shut behind him, “teased me _all day_ ,” he tugged insistently at Aziraphale’s bowtie, “tested my _patience_ \---”

Aziraphale snatched his hands from their attempts to undress him as quickly as humanly - or inhumanly - possible. “I was thinking of making some tea,” he said calmly.

“Oho, angel, _now_ you’re being ridiculous,” Crowley said with a low chuckle, trying to take his hands back; Aziraphale held firm. “Tea? Really?” he asked.

Aziraphale’s lips curled slightly. “Yes.”

Crowley moaned, leaning forward so their noses touched. “You bastard.”

All right, Aziraphale conceded, he’d give the demon _something_ for his patience. He closed the distance between their lips swiftly; Crowley all but melted into him, trying to take his hands back again to no avail. He moaned when his tongue met the angel’s, and all but whimpered when Aziraphale pulled back all too soon. “I did learn from the best,” Aziraphale whispered. “Now. On your knees.”

“Wh---”

“On your _knees_ ,” Aziraphale said more forcefully.

Crowley fell obediently to the floor, his knees hitting the wood painfully; heat was welling inside him, and he felt ready to burst. Aziraphale finally released his hands, and put one finger on his chin to tilt his head up. “Stay here,” he commanded.

“Y-yes,” Crowley agreed breathlessly.

With a contented smile, Aziraphale turned and swept into the back room.

Crowley could hear the tinkle of china, the running of water, and the humming of the angel. He closed his eyes briefly to try to steady his thoughts. It didn’t work. They had been out for almost nine hours. Nine hours of teasing and tempting and _waiting_. Six thousand years felt like nothing compared to the day he had had.

A minute - or four hours, Crowley honestly wasn’t sure anymore - later, Aziraphale returned. He had shed his jacket and waistcoat, and was sipping tea from a white mug. “So,” he began with barely a glance to the kneeling demon, “you think you’ve waited long enough, do you?”

“Yes,” Crowley said carefully, wondering if that was the right or wrong answer.

“Hm,” Aziraphale mused coming to a stop in front of him. “To the contrary, I think it might be good for you to wait a while longer.”

“Ohh angel, _please_ ,” Crowley said imploringly.[9] “Let me have you. Please.”

Aziraphale took another sip from his tea, looking down at him. “You think you deserve that?”

“No,” Crowley responded without hesitation, “oh angel, of course I don’t deserve you. But I want you. _Need_ you. I’d do--- do anything for you.”

Surprisingly, a warm smile came over the angel’s features. “Oh my dear. You always have had a flair for the dramatic.” Crowley dared to hope; this had to be a good sign. “Ah, I must admit, it has been a long day, hasn’t it?” A very good sign; all feigned apathy was falling from Aziraphale’s composure. “And while I have had so very much fun with you, I do think it’s about time we dispose of this pretense, hm?” Crowley looked up at him over his glasses pleadingly. “As much as I do enjoy looking down at you…. Very well, then, come here.”

Crowley had flown to his feet and into Aziraphale’s arms, kissing him furiously. The mug of tea miraculously ended up on the counter some ten feet away. “Oh _angel_ ,” Crowley breathed over his lips as they stumbled and tripped their way towards the stairs at the back of the store, “you have been absolutely _cruel_ today, and I loved every single second of it.”

“Did you now?” Aziraphale prompted, slipping his sunglasses off and setting them on a nearby shelf as they passed it. He tripped on the bottom step, but Crowley caught him by his collar, and then proceeded to start unbuttoning his shirt as Aziraphale barely managed to traverse the stairs backwards. “It wasn’t too much, was it?”

“Oh, it was,” Crowley confirmed delightedly. “It was far too much, and I want to see you go even further next time.” As they reached the top of the stairs, Crowley had pulled the shirt off of the angel.

“Next time?” Aziraphale repeated with a smile, fumbling with the black buttons on Crowley’s black shirt. “You want me to do all of that again?”

“I’d have you do that to me every day,” Crowley confirmed confidently as they made their way down the hallway in Aziraphale’s living space. “You have already, to be fair,” he added as an afterthought, “though not quite as obviously.”

“I--- I have?” Aziraphale asked, stopping from sliding the silky shirt from Crowley’s shoulders.

Crowley kissed him again as they entered the bedroom. “Just seeing you is temptation enough, darling.” He stopped, and glanced around the room. “Angel. Where’s the bed.”

Aziraphale turned to look over the room. “This is my reading room, my dear, why ever would it need a bed?”

“It’s--- it’s the bedroom, I put a bed in here last week, where is it?” Crowley asked, exasperated.

“I got rid of it,” Aziraphale said defensively. “You only ever sleep on that couch in the back room, why do you need a bed here too?”

Crowley let his head fall onto Aziraphale’s shoulder with a laugh. “ _Angel_ , you are ridiculous. Where did you think we were going up here? You think I want to have sex in your chair?” He snapped his fingers, and the furniture was neatly rearranged to make room for a modest double-sized bed. “It stays here, okay?”

Aziraphale finally slipped Crowley’s shirt off, but his lips were pursed slightly. “It takes up so much room,” he muttered.

“You spend all your time downstairs anyway, you won’t even notice it,” Crowley pointed out. He stopped any further protests with a pointed kiss. “I told you we should have just gone back to my place,” he added teasingly.

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, but turned to nudge Crowley onto the newly-materialized bed. “You would have waited the extra twenty minutes?”

“Hush,” Crowley said instead of an actual response, pulling Aziraphale onto the bed with him. “Is this really what you want to be discussing right now? Because I’d rather hear about what I get to do to you after all of everything today.”

“Do to _me_?” Aziraphale repeated with a smirk, leaning down to force Crowley onto his back. “Oh no, my dear, I think you’ve got that backwards.”

“Mmmm, even better,” Crowley agreed, wrapping his arms around Aziraphale’s shoulders. “Then do away, my angel, I am all yours.”

Aziraphale smiled. “That you are, my love,” he agreed, and kissed him.

It took a few minutes of increasingly passionate kissing before they remembered to take off their shoes and pants; Crowley was too anxious to be properly wrapped up in his other half, and Aziraphale was too intent on making up for the past nine hours of teasing for either of them to think about such mundane things as clothes. Aziraphale had sat up to remove them, but Crowley was impatient, and had all relevant articles[10] gone with another snap of his fingers.

“A tad unnecessary,” Aziraphale remarked.

“Agree to disagree,” Crowley countered easily, sitting up as well. “I’ve waited all day for you; I’m not keen on dragging this out any longer.”

Aziraphale hummed noncommittally, but Crowley was straddling him, sitting up on his knees above his lap, which was sufficiently distracting enough to have any further arguments dissipate. “Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale murmured instead, “but you are a lovely thing to look at.” He pressed a kiss to Crowley’s collarbone; his hands traced from Crowley’s thighs, up his hips to his waist, and around his back. “Strike me down if I should ever tire of seeing you.”

Crowley chuckled, running his hands through Aziraphale’s curls. “You say that every time.”

“And it hasn't ceased to be true,” Aziraphale said simply with a soft smile. “You are absolutely stunning, the most gorgeous work of art I’ve seen all day.”

“And yet I can’t hold a candle to your loveliness,” Crowley countered, his fingers tracing down the sides of the angel’s face, which crinkled into a much wider smile. “If I should see your face every day for another six thousand years, it wouldn’t be long enough. I would plaster your image in every museum so that everyone could see your beauty.”

“My, but you are effusive tonight.”

“I’ve got more, my dove.”

“I do not doubt that,” Aziraphale agreed with a chuckle. One of his hands slid down Crowley’s back. “By all means, then, I shan’t stop you.”

Crowley considered for a moment, then thought that something literary might be nice, considering his audience. He scanned through his mental library for something appropriate, but was temporarily distracted when one of Aziraphale’s fingers slipped inside him. “O-oh---” he moaned, trying not to roll his hips back to get more.

“Mm, yes, I know,” Aziraphale assured him with a quick kiss to his chest. “But I am waiting for more of these ebullient revelations of yours.”

“How--- how about a poem,” Crowley mumbled into his hair. “I’ve got one, it’s uh, it’s--- _damn_ , Middle Ages, the-the Englishman, did the--- the Tales of Something--- no! No, the Canterbury Tales---”

Aziraphale added another finger, cutting off the rambling. “Chaucer, my dear.”

“Chaucer,” Crowley agreed quickly. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Chaucer, that’s the one, he’s the guy, yup.”

Aziraphale pressed his lips to the pulse leaping in Crowley’s neck, then let his tongue trail up to his jaw. “The poem?” he prompted.

“O-oh, you’re---” Crowley chuckled uneasily. “The poem, yeah,” he managed. “It’s uh, let’s see, it’s…” With a monumental effort, he summoned the last threads of his composure. “ _Your two great eyes will slay me suddenly; / Their beauty shakes me who was once serene; / Straight through my heart the wound is quick and keen._ ”

“Ahh,” Aziraphale breathed against his shoulder; Crowley could feel the smile. “Yes, ‘Rondel of Merciless Beauty’.”

“Merciless,” Crowley repeated pointedly, “yeah.”

“Go on, then.”

Crowley swallowed, but obeyed, doing his best to not think about the two fingers inside him. “ _Only your word will heal the injury / To my hurt heart, while yet the wound is clean - / Your two great eyes will slay me suddenly; / Their beauty shakes me who was once serene._ ”

“Eyes on mine, love,” Aziraphale said as he slowly pulled his fingers out. Again, Crowley did as he was told. Aziraphale was pleased to see the demon’s face was flushed in pleasure, and gold eyes were dilated and slightly unfocused. “One more verse,” he encouraged, positioning his hands on Crowley’s hips.

“ _Up_ \--- mm,” Crowley closed his eyes briefly as Aziraphale shifted him slightly. “ _Upon my word_ ,” he continued after a moment, forcing his eyes back open to meet Aziraphale’s magnificently blue ones, “ _I tell you faithfully / Through life and after death you are my queen; / For with my death the whole truth shall be seen. / Your---_ ” His voice caught roughly in his throat when he felt the tip of Aziraphale’s cock pressing against him. The angel smiled patiently at him; he cleared his throat, and forced the last few lines out, breathless with anticipation. “ _Your two great eyes will slay me suddenly; / Their beauty shakes me who was once serene; / Straight through my heart the wound is quick and keen._ ”

“Such a wonderful poem,” Aziraphale reflected as he lowered Crowley onto his length. Whatever he said next was lost in the astoundingly indecent sound that poured from Crowley’s lips.

“O-oh, _fuck_ , my angel, my dove, my _everything_ , you--- you feel--- in _credible_ ,” Crowley gushed shamelessly, rolling his hips in the angel’s hands.

“We haven’t even properly begun,” Aziraphale noted with amusement.

“Waited _eight hourss and forty-eight minutess_ for thisss,” Crowley hissed softly, caressing his face. “Worth every ssecond.” He kissed Aziraphale rather more forcefully than he needed to as he started to slide up and back down; the angel’s hands, usually in place to assist the motion, rested uselessly on the demon’s hips. So Aziraphale let his hands instead snake up Crowley’s back again to hold him tighter, and closer.

“I have one for you,” Aziraphale said when Crowley broke away a couple minutes later.

“One what?” Crowley managed through the pleasure-haze in his mind.

“A poem,” Aziraphale said with a laugh. “Perhaps something a bit more modern than Chaucer? I met a Ms Wilcox when she was in France during the first World War. Lovely girl, very optimistic, good head on her shoulders. Delightful poetry.”

“I’m listening,” Crowley agreed.

Aziraphale recited with noticeably more poise than Crowley had managed.

“ _I love your lips when they’re wet with wine_  
_And red with wild desire;_  
_I love your eyes when the lovelight lies_  
_Lit with a passionate fire._  
_I love your arms when the warm white flesh_  
_Touches mine in a fond embrace;_  
_I love your hair when the strands enmesh_  
_Your kisses against my face._ ”

“Bit overt,” Crowley murmured. But he seemed to be rather taken with the recitation, because he had settled into Aziraphale’s lap, his anxious movements temporarily halted.

Aziraphale laughed. “Not every poet concerns themselves with oblique language and heavy themes. There is something to be said for the simple poems, I think. Do you want to hear the rest?”

“Course I do,” Crowley said childishly.

“Then hush.

“ _Not for me the cold, calm kiss_  
_Of a virgin’s bloodless love;_  
_Not for me the saint’s white bliss,_  
_Nor the heart of a spotless dove._  
_But give me the love that so freely gives_  
_And laughs at the whole world’s blame,_  
_With your body so young and warm in my arms,_  
_It sets my poor heart aflame._

 _So kiss me sweet---_ ”

“Ella,” Crowley blurted suddenly. “Ella Wilcox. No, I know this one.”

“You do?” Aziraphale asked, a little surprised. “I thought you gave up on poetry after the mid-1800s.”

Crowley snorted. “Nah, just like the old ones best, mastery of the language and that. She’s American, right? Yeah, ran into her in California. No, never thought _you’d_ like the modern stuff.”

“Are you going to let me finish, my dear?”

Crowley pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Sorry, yes.”

“ _So kiss me sweet with your warm wet mouth,_  
_Still fragrant with ruby wine,_  
_And say with a fervor born of the South_  
_That your body and soul are mine._  
_Clasp me close in your warm young arms,_  
_While the pale stars shine above,_  
_And we’ll live our whole young lives away_  
_In the joys of a living love._ ”

“Do you want me to say it, then?” Crowley asked with a small smirk.

“Say what?” Aziraphale asked curiously.

“Dunno if I can manage ‘fervor born of the South’, but I’ll say it all the same, if you like.”

Aziraphale smiled, and hugged Crowley a little tighter. “I do think I’d like that, yes.”

Crowley once again held Aziraphale’s face in his hands and leaned forward. “I am yours,” he whispered across the angel’s lips. “My body, my soul, everything I am--- it’s all yours. If you’ll have me.”

It was Aziraphale’s turn to kiss him somewhat more emphatically than was necessary. Without breaking it, he guided Crowley onto his back on the bed. When he broke away, he touched his forehead to Crowley’s. “I cannot think of anything that I’d like more than that, my love. And likewise,” he continued, tracing his hands back down to Crowley’s hips and thighs, “everything I am is yours.”

Crowley smiled up at him, draping his arms over the angel’s shoulders. “Good. Then I think I’d like to use this newfound ownership to request that you fuck me.”

“Such language,” Aziraphale chided, but chuckled anyway. He pulled back to sit up in order to gain optimal leverage. “I should rather think I’d like to use _my_ newfound ownership to tame that coarse tongue of yours.”

“Mm, no you don’t want that,” Crowley pointed out. “You like my tongue. And everything it can do.”

This was very true, but Aziraphale wasn’t about to give Crowley the satisfaction of admitting that. Instead, he thrust into him, withdrawing a soft moan. “I’m sorry that my recitation seemed to have distracted you from the evening’s activities,” he said.

“Oh _no_ ,” Crowley said firmly, “never apologize for that, no. I’d listen to you recite anything, any time. Love it if you’d continue,” he added, almost shyly, as he glanced away. “Like hearing your voice.”

“Is that right,” Aziraphale mused as he continued pumping into the demon, who was slowly but surely dissolving into what was soon to be little more than a puddle of bliss. He flipped through his own mental library to try to find something for the moment. “Hmm. I’m not sure if I have anything that---”

“Anything,” Crowley muttered. He had thrown one of his arms over his face to hide his eyes. “Just let me hear you talk. Please.”

A rare word from those lips, and yet it was not the first time he’d heard it today. Aziraphale smiled slightly. He had his old favorites, at least. “ _The nature of things is like swirling water:_ [11]” he began; Crowley hummed beneath him, “ _channel it east and it flows east, channel it west and it flows west. And human nature too is like water: it doesn’t choose between good and evil any more than water chooses between east and west._ ”

Before he could continue, however, Crowley’s lips had parted. “ _It-it’s true_ ,” he stammered, “ _it’s true that water--- water doesn’t choose between east and west. But---_ ”

“ _But doesn’t it choose between high and low?_ ” Aziraphale continued when Crowley broke off with a gasp. “ _Human nature is inherently good, just like water flows inherently downhill._ ”

“ _Th-there’s---_ ” Crowley was trying, but Aziraphale was not relenting. “ _There’s no such th-thing as a person who isn’t--- isn’t good, just as--- as there’s no water that doesn’t flow--- flow downhill._ ”

“I’m impressed, my dear,” Aziraphale praised. “You’ve read Meng Tzu?”

“B-bit of a, a pompous---” Crowley threw his head back into the pillows, his hands grasping at the sheets; he let out another sound that would have been censored if it had appeared in any respectable media. “Angel, I can’t--- _fuck_ , you’re good, too good, can’t recite---”

“Hmm,” Aziraphale mused. He continued anyway, “ _Think about water: if you slap it, you can make it jump over your head; and if you push and shove---_ ” He paused to prompt the writhing figure beneath him.

“ _You--- you can m-m-make it---_ angel, please---”

“ _Make it stay on a mountain_ ,” Aziraphale finished for him. Relentless thrusting now, perfectly deep and constant. “ _But what does this have to do with the nature of water? It’s only responding to the forces around it. It’s like that for people too:_ ” Again, he paused.

Crowley moaned. “ _You can make them evil_ ,” he said in a rush, “ _but that says nothing about--- about human nature_!”

“Mm, very good,” Aziraphale said. He leaned forward, lifting Crowley’s hips a little further. “You seem to be at your limit, dearest.”

“With--- with you,” Crowley whimpered. “Want--- want to--- with you, want to feel---”

“You were waiting for me?” Aziraphale was surprised, if not a little pleased. “Oh, my dear, you should have said something.”

“N-no, listening to--- _reciting_ with you, wouldn’t--- didn’t want to stop.” He tilted his head back again, baring his neck. “Would keep waiting if you kept talking,” he admitted.

“Oh now, I’m not that cruel,” Aziraphale conceded, leaning down to brush his lips over Crowley’s throat.

“Y’ could be,” Crowley slurred. “Wouldn’t mind.”

“Perhaps another night, then,” the angel suggested into his neck. “But you’ve been incredibly acquiescent today, putting up with me. Let’s reward that, shall we?”

“Oh _yesss_ , yes please, _fuck_ yess,” Crowley moaned. His hands were shakily finding Aziraphale’s shoulders. “Angel, will--- will you---” A sudden wave of inhibition seemed to seize him. He shut his eyes against the inquiring blue gaze. “H-hold me,” he mumbled. “Arms around, in--- in your lap---” He swallowed and opened one eye. “Please,” he added in a small voice.

“Of _course_ , my love,” Aziraphale effused, doing as requested and wrapping his arms around his demon. He lifted him from the bed and sat back with Crowley in his lap, his arms wrapped securely, comfortingly, around him. Crowley’s own arms were around Aziraphale’s shoulders, and his face was buried in his curls; but his hips were moving in small, anxious circles in the angel’s lap. Aziraphale hummed into Crowley’s neck as he let pleasure pool inside him. “You do rather seem to like it when I come inside you, don’t you?”

“So much,” Crowley agreed in little more than a murmur against his scalp. “Feels like--- feels like claiming me as yours. Want to be. All yours.”

“And you are,” Aziraphale assured him. Then he held him down, pressed him tightly into his lap with a little gasp. “All-all mine,” he managed as he let himself go, “my love.”

Crowley shuddered and spilled onto their stomachs, his cock pressed between them. His thoughts flickered in and out like a dying fluorescent light as he held tight to the only thing that was real to him, the only thing that mattered, the angel in his arms. His mind unfurled around him, and he felt Aziraphale’s warmth answer it with a reassuring embrace.

A lifetime might have passed them by as they stayed in their embrace, as though clutching to a buoy on a stormy sea.[12] Aziraphale was the first to lift his head from where he had nestled it in Crowley’s neck.

“Oh!” he cried out in surprise. “Oh my dear, your--- your wings.”

Crowley blinked his own eyes open, and realized that it wasn’t just his mind that had unfurled: his wings had manifested, and cocooned them against the setting sun streaming through the window. He hastily pulled them back. “Shit, sorry.”

Aziraphale was laughing, though. “Oh my, you had quite the climax, I take it.”

His wings twitched in embarrassment as he avoided the angel’s gaze. “S’what happens when you tease me all day.”

“You also drooled in my hair,” Aziraphale continued.

“I _what_?” Crowley snapped. But he was right: there was a small patch of hair matted down, and the corner of Crowley’s mouth was wet. “Ugh,” he groaned, and let his head fall onto Aziraphale’s shoulder, who hadn’t been able to appropriately quell his laughter. “Ugh, just kill me now, can’t believe it, so _uncool_. Can’t even be teased for a day without going to pieces.”

“I think it’s rather endearing,” Aziraphale assured him, reaching up to stroke his head. “Besides, you did say you wanted me to do more _next time_.”

“Mm.” Crowley considered for a moment, wondering if he could actually handle that. But Aziraphale’s hand in his hair was calming, and very reassuring. And he trusted the angel to push him to his limit and make it all _so very worth it_. “Next time,” he agreed. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s see what you can do.”[13] He lifted his head and looked Aziraphale in the eye. “Hey angel.”

“Yes, my dear?”

Crowley reached up and cradled his head in his hands. “I love you. You know that, right? You mean the world to me.”

“I do know that,” Aziraphale confirmed with a soft smile and eyes filled with unconditional fondness. “I love you, too, my dear.”

  
\---

[1] - Except crepes and sushi. Crowley was still working on overcoming those barriers. [return]

[2] - This was far easier than one might think. At any given moment, what Crowley would be most easily tempted with was Aziraphale himself. Aziraphale is not an idiot, and picked up on this immediately. [return]

[3] - It hadn’t so much slipped from his hand as much as it had been thrown from his grip due to the surprise of Aziraphale’s… skillful use of his tongue. [return]

[4] - This had been a bit of a challenge due to the tightness that Crowley seemed to favor in his pants. Aziraphale had enjoyed overcoming the challenge. [return]

[5] - He was, but Aziraphale saw it anyway. [return]

[6] - Crowley had spent the better part of the past six millennia waiting for Aziraphale to return his affections. When he had got them, Crowley's previously praiseworthy patience had evaporated nearly instantaneously. [return]

[7] - It is worth noting at this point that Aziraphale had been making sure all day that, when he offered Crowley one of these temptations, he had also made sure that any humans nearby were suddenly very interested in absolutely anything else. Crowley didn't have to know that, though. [return]

[8] - "Angel," Crowley had hissed warningly after the fourth red light in a row. Aziraphale insisted it wasn't his doing. [return]

[9] - Some might have called it begging, but Crowley - as a personal rule - did not beg. [return]

[10] - That is to say, all articles. [return]

[11] - Selection from _Man’s Nature Is Good_ , c 300 BC; Aziraphale had always appreciated the sentiment, of course. [return]

[12] - It was two minutes. Not even a lifetime by mayfly standards, but Crowley does like his exaggerations. [return]

[13] - “Next time” turned out to be “tomorrow”. Crowley did not drool this time, but both sets of wings made unexpected appearances. [return]

**Author's Note:**

> In case you're curious (and to cite my sources), here's what they're reciting, in order of appearance:  
> "Rondel of Merciless Beauty" by Geoffrey Chaucer  
> "I Love You" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox  
> "Man's Nature is Good" by Meng Tzu (aka Mencius)
> 
> Also! Title comes from BoA's "Eat You Up", which is definitely on my Ineffable Husbands playlist ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ


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